Fashion, Food, Fun And Dating

Don’t Blame The Neanderthal… Its Society’s Fault

I thought it would be fitting to write a little story that happened to me recently.

Yeah, I’m a recovering anxiety freak! Although, I don’t think you ever recover from anxiety, you just learn to deal with it and breath. Sometimes it results in a panic attack and you have to leave your sweat cycle class and go back home because you thought you left the stove on. Only to find you didn’t.

But past trauma’s cause me anxiety. Car maintenance is a huge button. Only because I’ve been swindled several times. And several is an understatement.

Which creates an enormous obstacle when I fail my smog check and my trusty mechanic sends me to the evil dealership people to get the radiator to my BMW changed. I whine and complain. I’ll do anything rather than face the mean dealer guys with outrageous prices. Instead of one thing being wrong with your car, suddenly you have 10 things wrong. And those 10 things aren’t cheap, nor are they covered under your warranty.

Some people get white coat syndrome going to the doctor. Their blood pressure rises and some people actually pass out. That happens to me at the BMW dealership.

I’ve learned to deal with it. Especially this time around. I took my business CEO self into the dealership and left my panic stricken self at home. And the experience was amazing. At this particular dealership on Lankersheim Blvd, I had a horrid experience around 5 yrs ago. I was charged a ton of money for an oil change ( post warranty) and yelled at by the front desk girl. And yes I tattooed a nasty yelp review!

But this time, I was treated nicely, got to drive an X5 for the day, and my car is back to normal.

I took my car to get smog checked again. As I drove up I was greeted by a “Neanderthal.” Who stated: “you need to drive your car around and keep it “idle.” You won’t pass your smog test because of how you are driving it. We see this in “Women” driving BMWs all the time!”

I thought this was an interesting “fact.” And I consider myself a researcher and was seeking proof. I called my trusty service guy at BMW who stated: “Yes it’s true. Post radiator change you have to keep the car idle for a period of time. And it’s best to drive it a long distance in order for the car to go through certain checks. It happened to me and my car. I had to drive it to San Diego post radiator change before it passed it’s smog check. And it has nothing to do with being a WOMAN! Unfortunately, that guy had a poor choice in words.”

After driving my car to Palm Springs, I took my CEO self back to the “Neanderthal” smog check place. I told the guy helping me to tell the Neanderthal Gentelman to correct his fallacy and to stop spreading his “fake” news to customers. It’s bad for business. I told him I was letting this slide and would not give him a bad review on Yelp.

It’s not the Neanderthals fault. I blame society. There’s always been a Weird stigma between male and female drivers. And he was just following his programming.

The picture above is of me on my childhood friend’s toy car circa 1974. It makes me laugh every time I see it, and a great definition of what my life’s been about!